Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of numbers in various languages

The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was delete. The "keep" arguments were challenged as arguments to avoid, while the arguments to delete were more detailed and not refuted. If anyone would like the content moved to userspace in order to move to Wiktionary, let me know. Ritchie333 ^(talk) ^(cont) 08:38, 14 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I believe it's better to move it to Wiktionary. 17lcxdudu (talk) 10:38, 15 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

List of numbers in various languages[edit]

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WP:Wikipedia is not a dictionary, and this list is nothing else than a multi-language dictionary for the ten first numbers. Also, this article is an WP:ORPHAN, and it seems that this list is WP:original synthesis.D.Lazard (talk) 13:03, 5 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the deletion sorting lists for the following topics: Language, Mathematics, and Lists. D.Lazard (talk) 13:03, 5 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Delete. The fact that the article is an orphan is wholly inconsequential. Being an orphan neither qualifies something for deletion nor nudges it over the edge in close cases. It's also not any kind of original research. The topic of numbers in any particular language, or family of languages, or across languages as a whole is certainly going to be notable. But the deciding factor here is WP:NOTDICT, where this would belong as an appendix instead. A gigantic listing of the words for 0-10 in as many languages one can muster is outside Wikipedia's scope. The fact that 0-10 is used also highlights a problem that not all of these languages use a base-10 system, but trying to explain all that in a list like this wouldn't be feasible. It would be akin to having "List of color words in various langauges" for common colors, etc. 35.139.154.158 (talk) 17:47, 5 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Delete per NOTDICT. --mikeu ^talk 22:36, 5 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Delete clear NOTDICT fail. (t · c) buidhe 07:15, 6 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Keep; I reckon this is an encyclopedic topic. However, it's not amazing as the sprawling behemoth it currently is; a much much shorter list with some encyclopedic background given in the lede would be significantly preferable IMO. J947 † ^edits 08:09, 6 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Delete per WP:NOTDICT WP:NOTINDISCRIMINATE. Ajf773 (talk) 09:38, 6 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Keep; This article is not a dictionary to explain words' meaning. It is rather a useful list to compare basic words of different languages (just like other Wikilists about countries, stars, automobiles, etc.). The main purpose of it is to compare languages, therefore users can find similarities and differences easily. Orphanhood appears to be caused by disregard of editors of other linguistic pages. A better way is to move this page to Wiktionary as an appendix. 17lcxdudu 18:40, 6 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Delete per NOTDICT, WP:IINFO, and near-total lack of sources for a list that includes some 1200 langauges and is over 433 KB. There are serious problems for a comparative list — in particular, many languages have special names for larger numbers, and some languages do not use base 10 numerals. –LaundryPizza03 (d c̄) 20:03, 6 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
There are problems with this page. It needs fixes rather than complete deletion.

There is a useful database (only modern languages) of numerals from one to ten in various languages

https://lingweb.eva.mpg.de/channumerals/

with reliable sources.

Other sources include Wiktionary, several proto-language databases (including American and Uralic languages) and some linguistic papers. 17lcxdudu (talk) 20:57, 8 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Comment - I think this subject matter is important enough to open up the discussion to experts. This reads like a giant Swadesh list. Not sure of it passes WP:LIST. Importance is not the same as notable. What do others think? Bearian (talk) 13:08, 8 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Comment I suggest redirect to List of numeral systems#By culture / time period. That article already has a short list.--SilverMatsu (talk) 16:07, 9 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
This wouldn't really make sense, though, because that's a list of various systems used to denote the numbers, whereas this is a list of the words in languages for those numbers. A redirect is also especially pointless for an orphan and an unlikely search time, such as this. 35.139.154.158 (talk) 23:39, 10 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Delete. Indiscriminate and (by assuming that counting to ten is the natural stopping point) heavily Eurocentric. I'm sure there's something interesting and encyclopedic to say about the comparative linguistics of number words, but this is too broad in scope and bare in presentation to qualify as that. It is not knowledge, only data, and not very good data at that. Also, all the sourcing appears to be very individual, so WP:SYN applies. —David Eppstein (talk) 06:34, 11 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Languages with base 10 numerals are not only common in Europe, but also among the world. In fact almost all Eurasian languages are 10-based. Even Khmer has a 10-based Austroasiatic predecessor. 17lcxdudu (talk) 23:00, 12 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Keep. There are numerous other lists throughout Wikipedia. This list is not a "dictionary" per se; the languages are arranged in families which show relationships of the languages in those families and language branches (such as the Germanic branch of the Indo-European Languages). I think this aides in showing these relations.Squad51 (talk) 12:02, 12 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
There are numerous other lists throughout Wikipedia Oh great! Now when somebody nominates anything for deletion one can just say "there are numerous other [thing] throughout Wikipedia". One will have understood that this kind of comment, which does nothing to attempt to address the very real issues with the list, is not persuasive. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 00:06, 13 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Keep. There's no reason to, this page is useful and to delete it would just be cruel. Great Mercian (talk) 15:08, 12 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
An appeal to pity combined with WP:ITSUSEFUL? How utterly unconvincing. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 00:04, 13 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Keep. Per the reasons given by J947, 17lcxdudu, and Squad51. Adam78 (talk) 20:18, 12 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Strong delete Despite protestations to the contrary, this is nothing but an indiscriminate, heavily Eurocentric and unsalvageable (due to it's base concept) WP:NOTDICT failure, whose sheer size also makes it a blatant WP:INDISCRIMINATE issue. To provide encyclopedic value, data should be put in context with explanations referenced to independent sources. The sheer size and variety of languages, as well as the lack of any inclusion criteria or sources to back this up (go look at WP:CSC), make any attempt to provide "encyclopedic value" to this doomed from the start (as it would be impossible to do more than a very shallow, superficial and valueless summary of this without it becoming excessively bloated). RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 00:04, 13 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Delete – None of the sources seem to discuss them comparatively. The only one is maybe [1], a source on which the article relies heavily and has none of the signs of a reliable source. Ovinus (talk) 06:01, 13 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Delete Simply put, this is Wiktionary appropriate content, but not for Wikipedia. Maybe there is an encyclopedic topic, but no one so far has shown what that would be. Dege31 (talk) 15:16, 13 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Keep. Per Adam. Bookworm857158367 (talk) 20:43, 13 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Comment This article is at least valuable. If we finally decide to delete it, please move it to Wiktionary as a backup. (Or we can move it to Wiktionary as a compromise.) 17lcxdudu (talk) 02:02, 14 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

Delete fails NOTDICT. LearnIndology (talk) 11:06, 15 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]